


All He Asks

by Morgana



Series: Next Best Thing [3]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-01
Updated: 2010-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-05 17:38:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morgana/pseuds/Morgana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coming back from darkness, Willow finds someone willing to accept her for who she is</p>
            </blockquote>





	All He Asks

She is always aware of their eyes, the gazes that drape about her like chains until she moves about beneath the weight like a swimmer in slow motion. From the wary hazel of a former best friend, to the watchful blue of her foster-father and the compassionate chocolate of a lifelong love, it seems she can feel each independant of the others. They are constantly assessing her, measuring her against their memories of the Willow-who-used-to-be.

They speak to her in soft, tentative tones, and the silence about them is filled with the recriminations and questions they are always so careful to keep from her. They cannot know that her own mind screams the things they care too much to say, or dare not utter for fear of awakening that part of her. The words they use are precise, uttered in a low alto or a crisp accent, words that were once common, as though they are trying to convince her and themselves that nothing really has changed.

The house is wrapped in a sort of uneasy peace these days. Nobody cooks, for Buffy works double shifts, Giles is only interested in what dinner he can drink, and neither Dawn nor Xander have skill that goes much farther than a grilled cheese sandwich. Her own kitchen abilities are questionable, and the one time she tries to make pancakes, Dawn's sad blue eyes cut the attempt short, ending in a closed door while Willow calls for pizza.

Sometimes it seems as though those horrible days were some nightmarish vision or dream, and that if she just waits long enough, Tara will walk in from the bedroom dressed in her purple silk sleeping shirt, giving her that sweet smile just before she slides in next to her. Other times she wonders if the years they had were the dream, and she is just now waking to a cold reality, one where she will forever be the sidekick, the second, the unwanted houseguest.

Perhaps that's why she starts fucking Spike. They are two of a kind, both of them once members of the privileged inner circle, now relegated to its icy edges. But in his crypt, none of that seems to matter, only the chill hands that raise goosebumps on her skin, the scent of cigarettes, leather and bourbon that clings to dead flesh, the rough voice that rumbles in her ear, words like "Fuck," and "Yeah," and "More," pouring forth in a ragged torrent.

How is it, she wonders, that the air in this place of death is more alive than the house that three living people dwell in? Why does it take the cold breath of the grave to spark a fire that burns through her veins and sets her aflame? Willow used to wonder about these things, until one day she stops thinking. In the aftermath, naked and sweat-soaked, she takes a minute to study him, the white-blond hair, the sharp cheekbones, the full mouth, and most of all, his eyes.

His eyes are her favorites, whether the cool cerulean that can scan the Magic Shop and pick out everyone's weak spots or the burning indigo that fairly scorches her body with each layer of clothing she peels away or the warm blue she imagines the Mediterranean Sea to be that appears in the lazy minutes afterwards. But best of all is when he turns to look at her, and she loses herself in his eyes.

She knows now why Buffy came here after she rose from the dead. In Spike's bed, she is free in a way that she could never be on Revello Drive. Here she isn't a witch who can't control her power or a grieving lover who can't turn back time, or even a friend fallen from grace. She is only Willow, and that is all he ever asks of her.


End file.
